Simon started his career within the SEO industry two decades ago where he was having a chat with two young chaps in a bar in Miami where he was working. These two chaps mentioned that they was earning a load of money, been given new cars and fancy holidays doing this thing called affiliate marketing, and Simon thought - I want a piece of that.
Fast forward to today and Simon is the founder & CEO of Blue Array SEO which is the UK's largest specialist SEO agency employing 50+ people who service clients including big brands Zoopla, MailOnline, RAC and GoCardless.
Simon has a vision of making the SEO industry a better place to work in and many SEOs industry-wide have gone through the Blue Array Academy.
You might also recognise Simon as the author of the best-selling 'Mastering In-House SEO' book where SEO's who work in-house share their stories and experiences.
Simon puts his success of Blue Array SEO agency down to being people-first and profit second.
Watch or listen to our unscripted SEO interview as we go behind the scenes of what it is really like to be a large scale SEO agency owner.
The Unscripted SEO Interview with Simon Schnieders
Watch the interview
Listen to the podcast
(56 minutes long)
The unscripted questions Mark A Preston asked Simon Schnieders
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How did you get into the SEO industry and when was that, Simon?
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What has your personal journey been like since you started in the SEO industry?
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Do you think that starting your SEO career in the affiliate marketing space gave you a good grounding to becoming successful?
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Your book 'Mastering In-House SEO', why did you want to publish a book relating to in-house SEOs specifically?
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What makes your Mastering In-House SEO book different from all the other SEO books on the shelf?
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Are there any key lightbulb moments in your Mastering In-House SEO book?
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I noticed on your LinkedIn bio, you said that you are the founder of the UK's largest specialist SEO agency. What does the specialist bit mean?
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When you originally foundered Blue Array SEO agency, what was your vision for it?
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How have you overcome funding challenges within your agency?
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What are the key differences with growing your team today opposed to when you foundered the agency?
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What specific obstacles have you come up against whist growing your SEO agency team?
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How do you make sure that the customer experience you provide has a seamless flow from the pre-sales to the after-sales and beyond?
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Do your own team take the same courses and SEO certifications as the ones you offer to the wider SEO community within the Blue Array Academy?
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Does your internal training and development go into a lot more detail than your public facing Technical SEO Certification and SEO Manager Certification?
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What do you think has driven the SEO salary hike the industry has recently experienced?
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Do you think that constant rising SEO salaries are a good thing for the industry?
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Do you think that some SEOs are being offered stupid money to jump ship to another agency?
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As an agency owner, what specific challenges have you faced surrounding the SEO salary discussion?
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With the cost of living constantly going up for everyone and the looming talk of another recession, what do you think the next 12-months is going to look like for the agency world?
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How has long term client contract commitment changed?
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From an agency owners perspective, what does your typical day look like?
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What do you have to go through to keep all your team in a job?
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Have you self-funded (bootstrapped) the growth of Blue Array SEO agency or did you take investment on?
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What are the pitfalls of taking investment on to grow an agency?
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What specific entity/thing allowed you to go from running the agency on your own to now having an in-house management and finance team?
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Does everyone in your agency contribute towards directly generating revenue?
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If you had to pick just one main challenge as an agency owner, what would that be?
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What was the reason for you wanting to setup your LondonSEO Meetup event?
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What contributed towards your LondonSEO XL conference being so successful?
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What sort of investment was required for putting on LondonSEO XL conference?
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As your LondonSEO XL conference was a paid to attend event, did you make any profit?
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How will, or will the way agencies sell SEO services to clients change in the future?
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Do you think that AI in this industry will get so sophisticated that SEOs on the ground will no longer be needed?
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What specifically is SEO creativity?
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What is the difference between creativity in relation to SEO vs Digital PR?
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Is there anything the audience can do to help you?
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Are the certifications you offer within the Blue Array Academy just a recruitment ploy?
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